Agriculture & Forestry- Utilization & Potential Applications

Agroforestry is an intensive study on land management system that benefits biological interactions between forest trees or shrubs and agricultural crops and/or livestock. There are five basic types of agroforestry practices have been developed: windbreaks, alley cropping, silviculture, riparian buffers and forest and hill farming. Agroforestry helps to conserve species diversity and protect natural resources, reduce pollution, control soil erosion, and enhance wildlife biodiversity. The benefits of agroforestry include: improvement of the growth of agro economy and resource sustainability. Agroforestry practices are also influence agro ecosystem and diversification of endangered crop species. The greatest research need is to develop farm-level analyses to increase potential economic costs, benefits which may reduce risks associated with agroforestry practices and increase market value of products. This is a vital prerequisite to the objective comparison of both production-and conservation-driven agroforestry practices with alternative land use options. Furthermore, awareness should be raised among farmers and labors to improve future market value of regional, national and international markets for commodities that can be produced through agroforestry system. Research o­n tree-crop-animal-environment interactions should be pursued to provide a scientific basis for optimizing agroforestry designs.